Alpine Gets Patent for IC Jigsaw Method

Why put multiple ICs on a circuit board when you can slice up the silicon, glue the pieces together, and have it all work as a single entity? While that may be an oversimplification of Alpine Microsystems DirectAttach IC packaging technology, it pretty much gives you an idea of what they're doing. This week, the company announced that it has received a patent for the process. Alpine says that its DirectAttach method for interconnecting multiple ICs in an electronic system improves the electrical performance and allows an increased number of I/O pins to be used while minimizing printed circuit board area and avoiding thermal degradation of the IC substrate interface. DirectAttach is a companion technology to Alpine's MicroBoard substrate architecture. Basically, the technology could lead to really small computers (and other gadgets) by combining things like graphics, audio, and even a CPU in a single tiny package that can be plugged into a PCB as though it were one chunk of silicon.